InuRanma
by kuro-oni5
Summary: What if Genma Wasn't Ranma's father? What if a dog demon was? First chapter redone, finally.
1. prologue

InuRanma.

If I owned em, I'd be female, Japanese, about this tall and rich beyond all reckoning. That being said I'm none of these things.

A chill wind coiled around the upper floors of the hospital, which swayed against the assault and groaned in straining protest. The building had been condemned recently, and was just now being prepared for demolition. As if in reply to the battling frequencies of steel and wind and piercing wail split the air and ripped through the shattered windows. For this is where Nodoka Saotome lost her only child.

She was the last customer this hospital would ever see, and the first still-birth that had ever crossed its doors. The doctors wouldn't approach her as she sobbed, fear of her legendary swordsmanship skills kept them at bay. Even as she extracted a promise to be buried under this heap she cradled her baby. All the tests said he was in excellent health, and would grow up to be a fine young man, except he came out dead. She looked up sharply, having not moved from the room for nearly a day, as the sound of her doom, and her release, came crashing down on her. With the simple flick of a switch the building started to fall, starting with the basement and roof simultaneously.

As the floor beneath her gave way she cried out to the heavens "Oh please, don't let it end like this!"… And for a moment nothing happened, but then time around Nodoka seemed to slow, the very fabric of reality warping around her in a glowing aura that stopped her descent, and gently forced away any rubble she thought was sure to crush her. As she slipped into the arms of sweet unconsciousness the building fell around her, the glowing shield that had saved her depositing her safe, and unnoticed, amongst the rubble and then dissipating.

(Segue)

Nodoka awoke to the sounds of heavy machinery being operated, and searched her memories for what had happened to her last night. Just as her sorrow grew to a head there was a blinding flash of light and out from it stepped a huge white dog, fur so long and thick that it appeared sightless to her, even as it lay a cloth wrapped bundle and disappeared the same way it came. The attention from the workers that this scene had caused sent them rushing to her side. She tentatively picked up the now squirming bundle and crept out of the wreckage before she was noticed. She hid in an alleyway nearby and slowly lifted the top of the swaddling clothes to reveal the smiling face of a near perfect duplicate of her deceased son. She blanched as she noticed his less than human ears and fangs, but quickly put them out of mind in favor of nursing this obviously hungry gift from the heavens.

(Segue, SEGUE!)

Cid blanched as a familiar figure strode into his shop, looking for all the world like she hadn't just been crushed to death. He nearly passed out as he saw the baby in her arms, writhing and squirming just like a live baby should. He then went through the routine of slapping, pinching, and doing varied amounts of harm to himself, obviously trying to wake up. She merely laughed, hugging her long time friend and ignoring his act, one she'd seen many times today.

"Don't despair my friend, you aren't dreaming, and I'm not a ghost, I've survived my own foolishness." Nodoka Saotome laughed like he'd never heard before, a sweet tinkling sound of pure joy and merriment.

"By the gods Nodoka it really is you, I thought we had lost you in the explosion, how…?" he left the question open, and she quickly picked up on it.

"The same way my child is here before you, I was saved, given a second chance by our wondrous kami." And again she laughed.

Cid's eyes leapt to the baby, and widened in disbelief as the child stared back, giggling and reaching for him. He quickly started into a quick prayer of protection as he saw the babe's unusual features. Nodoka burst into action, and Cid found himself hurled against the wall with the point of the sword-mistress's blade held just under his jaw.

Still smiling serenely she intoned "Now Cid, my good, good, friend wouldn't do anything rash before hearing the whole story now would he?" and didn't even wait for his reply before launching into said story, "I know not what saved me, but when I awoke from my brief fainting spell, its messenger appeared. A large, blindingly white, dog that, while benign, seemed strangely dark to my eyes, it dropped my baby here and I will take care of it, my second chance at motherhood will not go to waste." Her tone brooked no argument, Cid knew that she was getting to the part where he'd have to help, while they were friends in a casual sense Nodoka wouldn't come to him first under these circumstances without just cause.

So he simply sighed, put on a strained smile and said in his most calming tone, the one reserved for when his neck was on the line, "How can I help?"

She seemed pleased with this, more that he caught on so quickly than that he complied, she knew he would comply after all, "Why I'm glad you asked, you can see that my child has some, well, irregularities in the way he will be seen, and I was wondering if you could fix it so he could lead a more normal life."

Cid once again let out a pained sigh; this would leave the areas reserves low for weeks, even if he channeled it properly. "Very well, lay him on the table there and I'll prepare my things." And with that he went into the back, swiftly returning with an armload of esoteric looking artifacts and bobbles, setting them on the floor and then placing them in seemingly random patterns around the boy, who had slept through the entire altercation. When the last touched the surface he jumped away and a brilliant flash lit the room. In its wake the lights dimmed and a few of the crystals nearest the babe shattered, shards disintegrating in midair. When the overhead lamp flickered back to life a normal, healthy, and very awake baby boy lay crying in the center of the table.

"Oh Cid he's beautiful, how ever can I repay you?" Nodoka scooped him up and did a quick jig across the shop floor.

Looking for an escape, Cid pointed wildly at the table, "Look! What's that?" then did a double take as he actually found something odd about the scene. Poking out of the child's discarded swaddling clothes was a yellowed, crumbling note that was held together by enough magic to light his house for a month.

Cid scooped it up, taking care to read it before he drained all of that delicious spiritual energy, and nearly gasped as his eyes skimmed across the signature and the spell previously holding it together ignited, tearing the paper to shreds, and bathing them in unholy green fire before it touched the ground. Not even Cid, one of the last holders of mystic knowledge in the eastern hemisphere could reform that note from the ashes it now was. "Gods be damned, sinner's bane has been loosed." He murmured under his breath.

"What did it say?" Nodoka had a hint of actual fear in her voice.

"Your son was the reincarnation of the son of a powerful demon, but in order to save his son, the demon had its brother, Sesshomaru the wicked, send it forward in time to our era. The demon reclaimed its soul halfway to our time, thus killing your offspring in the womb. As recompense, Sesshomaru asks you to accept his brother, to take care of as if it were your own, for in reality it is." Cid ran through the old knowledge again and again, it seemed like there was nothing to do but pray. "The blood of a demon flows through a human heart tonight."

(Credits song)

So? I put this off for too long, I know, but with Christmas over and all I need some time to unwind between real work, so I'm rewriting my first, my favorite, and my most well received fanfic. Hope you like it, next chapter will be out in say, a week.


	2. finally a first chapter

InuRanma part 2

InuRanma part 2

Origins.

Once again, I'm not Rumiko Takahashi, stop calling, she isn't here.

If you asked Ranma how he did all of the things he could, he would almost surely say that it was all about the timing. For example, it was 12:43, which meant Ukyo was late to bring him lunch, no surprise since Shampoo showed up early today and he had to rush back to school due to a cross-country punt of Akane sized proportions. At 12:45, he was going to accept the food, dodge the next hammer to mess with Akane, and launch into a fight with Mousse, who was hiding in the bushes after Ranma refused Shampoo's obviously spiced food, Kuno, standing behind a tree reciting loud French poetry, and Ryouga, who was heading vaguely in the direction of the school while putting out enough depression ki to make anyone with the sensitivity of a chipmunk feel a bit down. It was with this precision that Ranma predicted the seemingly random events of Nerima. Applying what he'd learned from monks during his traveling days. Ranma used a combination of martial arts, speed writing, and his somewhat lacking organizational skills to create a martial artist's almanac for the next few months. So far it had been eighty five percent accurate and even Nabiki had stopped trying to read it when she realized that Ranma's writing really was that terrible. She still teased him about keeping a "diary" though. Now other than forcing his brain to squeeze out this useful guide to his everyday life, Ranma had things to do. So when Mousse slammed into Kuno, Ranma angled into Akane's next hammer strike, not letting go of Ryouga's arm until they were over a duck pond in the park. Akane's anger guttered out, only for her to find a note attached to her hammer's head, reading "Akane, tell Kasumi I'll be at moms tonight, she had something she wanted to tell me. Ranma. PS You hit like a girl."

Ranma tsked as he made a note in his book; Akane was 3 seconds behind… "RANMA NO BAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!..." well that was close enough anyway. After his third revolution of the earth, 'must've dodged a bit too much, she put a lot of power into that last one.' Ranma finally descended from LEO and touched ground (Reads: smashed a crater into an abandoned lot) he looked around, recognizing the shop across the street and, shifting from his previous floored position to start heading out and whistling a merry tune.

'Juuban, right on schedule, good aim, Akane's always had good aim' then Ranma blanched as he remembered all the times that good aim had landed him in an onsen, particularly that all nympho meeting, now that was a tough one to escape.

Now most people wouldn't whistle into what they expected to be their almost certain doom, but Ranma's alamanac was unique in the fact that it predicted not only what was going to happen, but also exactly when those predictions would turn out to be false. So while he fully expected to be gutting himself by the end of this meeting, he was also prepared to be wrong.

Ranma hit the doorstep a bit early, so he stopped for a few seconds of reflection. In the last few months he'd defeated a phoenix god, had been drugged into an eventually ruined wedding, and been malleted roughly one hundred and seventy four times. Ranma sighed at the last one, thinking back to when Kasumi had so aptly said, "Akane's a nice girl, just a bit of a violent psychopath." She was completely right of course, while underneath all of her faults Akane was very sweet, likeable even, the constant beatings and accusations swiftly put a gap between them. Now all he had to do was figure out a peaceful way out of the engagement that didn't involve his untimely death.

'Oops, retrospect aside it's time to knock.' Ranma raised his hand and sharply rapped on the door. He didn't have to wait long before it opened slightly and the surprised face of his mother appeared on the other side, "Ranma? You're early; come inside dinner is just about done."

Ranma slipped in after her, shutting the door silently and slipping on his indoor shoes. Taking a seat he centered himself and counted to thirteen silently. At two he new the table was set, by four she had performed her final check on the miso soup. Ranma kept ticking off little two second events until she was halfway through her seventh and he took his opportunity to interrupt her. He'd spent weeks intermittently pondering, preparing, and even studying for this encounter. To survive it without getting roped into another wedding he would have to keep his mother on her toes and avoid the honor card he knew would be played.

"Anything I can help you with mom?" he said casually from over her shoulder.

"No thank you dear, have a seat." His mother replied unflinchingly as she whirled away from him. 'Damn she's too calm.'

Ranma started to sweat on the inside as his mother ladled out the meal. She had something big to tell him, that much was clear. He hated treating his daily relations with his friends and family like they were combat situations that required advanced planning and tactics, but they often evolved into physical conflicts so the habit had already been formed. His nervousness grew apparent as Nodoka took an envelope from her kimono sleeve and placed it firmly on the table, then sat and motioned for him to eat. It was a relief that discussion could wait until after the meal.

He ate slowly, not out of respect and manners but simply to stall for time. He still had another thirteen minutes before he could tell her what he'd found. His sense of honor screamed at him from the back of his mind trying to make him accept what his parents had forced him into. The streak of rebelliousness that his father's bad parenting had instilled in him was the only thing that kept him from a life of near constant beatings.

"You seem tense son, what's the matter?" Ranma jolted in his seat as he was addressed. While he knew he wasn't particularly smart outside of a straight fight, he also could see the signs that the drama surrounding Nerima was more than getting to him. Dr Tofu called it 'combat fatigue' and had cautioned him against staying battle ready all the time.

"Your senses have begun to trick you into seeing attacks that aren't there. If I thought it was possible, I'd ask you to just get some rest Ranma, spend some time away from the city." Tofu's words echoed hollowly in Ranma's mind as he thought of something to say. Only five minutes to go.

He took another spoonful of miso, "This is delicious, is this the same recipe you tried to teach Akane?" he winced internally as he realized the implication he'd made. That one would result in some tears if it ever got back to the family.

Nodoka just smiled lightly at the praise, "Why yes it is. Must be nice to have your mother prepare you a home cooked meal after so long away. I feel like I've only known you for months son… it's been so long." She stood slowly, walked around the table and pressed her arms around him in the most loving hug Ranma had ever remembered receiving. Naturally, and against all his mental commands to do otherwise, he froze in place. Nodoka let go and held him out at arms reach. "I knew something was wrong. Please tell me why you're so tense Ranma; I've been worried about you."

Ranma just sighed, he was thirty seconds early, but he could launch into it and get to the right sentence at the right time, "Well I was doing a genealogy project for school where we had to trace our clan's heritage back to the feudal era and find out what the clan's standing and responsibilities were five hundred years ago. When I was looking through the registries I found something odd." Ranma looked up briefly from his monologue. His mother seemed strangely pale, "My birth certificate said I was still born. I went through a few other files and found out that you had gotten a written promise to be buried along with me on the day of my birth. But the next day you had shown up back at home with me when your lawyers arrived to divide your effects amongst family. I… I don't think I'm a Saotome, am I mother." He said this all in the most deferential way possible. At the end he looked up into her now watery eyes and held his gaze firm.

She blinked away the coming tears and sat back down before beginning, "No son, you aren't. That's exactly what I had brought you here to tell you. You might not remember it, but today is your eighteenth birthday, and you're a man now. The truth of it is, I did lose my son that day, but as I sat there wallowing in grief over you. I asked the kami for a second chance at motherhood. In a blinding flash your corpse was replaced with a baby with the same features, except he had the cutest little dog ears." Ranms bigsweated as his mother squealed and ran a hand through his hair, presumably where the ears had been, "I know it's unbelievable, but afterwards I had a Shinto manipulator seal away your demonic characteristics so you would be look at as normal by your peers. We found a note regarding your origins, and I had it copied from memory for you." She handed him the envelope, "I love you son, you were my second chance and I'm sorry I wasted it by letting Genma take you away. No matter which kami or demon gave you to me, I've always loved you as my son."

She stood quickly and went over to a cupboard, withdrawing a small bottle with a cork stopper firmly planted in its neck, "This is what I had prepared so you could regain your heritage. It will unsuppress your true nature if you want to."

Ranma sat in complete shock. Then slowly he removed his almanac from its pouch on his belt and held it up in front of him. With a flash of ki it disintegrated into so many tiny burning bits of paper. He began to shake silently as they fluttered to the ground, then his mood did a back flip as he slammed down the soul of ice over his emotions. In a toneless voice he said, "Stupid rassafrassen book. Stupid pops for dragging someone WHO WASN'T EVEN HIS OWN SON across Asia. Stupid soul of ice for not workin right."

His mother sweat-dropped and edged out of the room, deciding that this might take awhile, and that her son might need some not frozen soup afterwards.

She had no such luck as Ranma ended his mumbled tirade shortly and glanced back up around him. He saw the burns on his chair and around where he sat and the flash freezing that'd taken over everything else and quickly reigned in his emotions.

"Wait… mom?" the pleading in his voice washed over Nodoka and she leapt forwards to comfort her son, "So what am I?" Ranma stated confusedly.

"You are the son of the great dog demon, the Inu no Taisho. You were born over five hundred years ago to him, and sent forward to me to protect you. My son was your destined reincarnation and when you came forward you took your soul back from him and caused him to die. I took you as my own, for in spirit you are." Nodoka hugged him closer to her.

"Well… my god, this is perfect!" Ranma jump up in obvious jubilation, "Finally, thank you mom, for giving me the chance I need to sort this whole mess out. I mean, who wants a demon as a fiancé anyway, and since I'm not an official Saotome, but some kind of time traveling dog demon, I can break these engagements and get the hell away from pops. No more crazy training experiments. No more fights at every hour of every day. I could be normal again… wait, did you say dog ears?" Ranma's head dropped as he stopped his 'happy dance' and sighed, "It's always something…"

"Ah yes my son, dog ears, and fangs. But were you really that dissatisfied with your life in Nerima? It couldn't be that horrible being waited on by three beautiful young ladies." Nodoka looked seriously at her son, wondering whether or not Genma had raised him properly yet again.

"No, if it were that easy it might not be, but I have to deal with attacks from their suitors and even from them day in and day out. And all the kidnappings and infighting has gotten me wired to the point where I can't sleep at night. It's just as well, most of the attacks happen at night. Doc calls it combat fatigue, and this is my chance to get out of it once and for all." Ranma started plotting his 'ending speech' even as he spoke. He needed Nodoka to be there, and maybe that Shinto guy she spoke about if he was still alive.

Nodoka just steepled her hands in front of her mouth, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She saw his calculating expression and knew she should offer her help now before he went off without her and made it worse, "How can I help you, I know I haven't been the best mother actually after what I've heard I might just be the worst, but I want to make it up to you by helping you out of this horrible mess Genma seems to have gotten you in." She practically snarled the name.

Ranma's eyes focused on her as he worked out his plan to finally get some peace and quiet. While Nerima was his home for longer than anything else he can remember, the time he spent there wasn't exactly happy. He had been beaten, ridiculed, tricked, embarrassed, beaten more, and somehow came out of the experience with just a bit of nervousness so far. But that was all going to change, "I need to go talk to everyone, then I think it's time for another training trip."

Nodoka swallowed at that, she knew that it meant she wouldn't be seeing her son again for a very long time, but if it meant he would be happy, she would do everything in her power to see it happen, "Very well son, let me gather my things and we will contact my old friend. We can get him to help with this, and talk about it on the way to the dojo from there."

(End game)

Bah, this is long overdue, but the writing gene leaves me when it will, so I had to give up on everything in favor of burying myself in work. Hope this makes up for it a bit, will be another stint before I can continue this, I lost all of my original copy so I have to do it from memory


End file.
